June 2005 Adoremus Bulletin Readers' Forum

Readers' Forum -- the lively "Letters to the Editor" of the Adoremus Bulletin provides a forum for exchange of ideas, comment and information on the sacred liturgy. The letters column is not published online. Because we are celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Adoremus we have included the letters online this month.

If you are reading the Adoremus Bulletin in the "online edition" only, you are missing one of the most popular and useful features of the journal. To become a member of Adoremus -- and receive the "hard-copy" edition, including the "Readers Forum", see Membership page.

We are grateful for your letters. While we read every letter, we get so many that it is impossible to answer or publish all of them. In selecting those to appear in "Readers Forum", preference will be given to subjects of widest interest. Letters should be 250 words or fewer, preferably typed. They may be e-mailed. Please include your name, address, city and state (which may be withheld on request). If a letter refers to a previous issue of AB, please include the date of that issue and name of article. All letters may be edited for publication. Be sure to indicate clearly if your letter is NOT intended for publication.

Did Consecration Happen?
My husband and I recently went to Mass at a newly renovated (beautiful) Roman Catholic Church. The priest was from the Redemptorist order. We found his choice of wording during the Eucharistic Prayer rather unsettling. The priest said at the consecration, “This is the Body of Christ” and “This is the Blood of Christ” instead of “this is My Body” and “this is My Blood”. Is this a correct formula of consecration and would the Eucharist be considered valid?

Their [pew] missal did not contain the Eucharist prayers and we have never heard these words (our parish uses a missal with four Eucharistic prayers). We do not believe it is correct to use this formula and wonder whether one would be receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ if this formula is used.

If this is not to be used, I would like to contact the priest and refer him to the document that says it is not correct. It is not fair that those who go to this particular church may be receiving an invalid Eucharist.

Arlene Grochowski
via e-mail

Response:

The words of consecration are the same in all approved Eucharistic prayers:

“Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you”, and “Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant....”

The words of consecration are printed in the Missal (“Sacramentary”) the priest uses. If other words are substituted for the actual words of consecration this would affect the validity of the Mass.

I or Y Days?
When I was growing up we had “i” days and “y” days. Sometimes they fell on the same day. In Catholic school we usually had off on “y” days. Occasionally we had off on “i” days. Is it safe to presume that the liturgical calendar has holYdays listed?

It seems that too many people refer to holy days as mere holidays which too often means that the secular is more important to them than the sacred. It also blurs the distinction between them.

I appreciate your effort in publishing the Adoremus Bulletin. I would like to see comments on some of the articles in the News & Views section. Occasionally I find that some of the articles propose dubious ideas, at best.
Francis J. Vangeli
Columbia, Missouri

Response:
It’s good to be reminded that “holy day” is the origin of the word “holiday”. Liturgical calendars (including the one on the Women for Faith & Family web site — www.wf-f.org/Liturgical Calendar-info.html) generally have holy days listed as they are observed in the Church, including the variations in dates of celebration — for example, the Annunciation, March 25, was celebrated April 4 this year because the traditional date fell on Good Friday. Holy Days of Obligation, those feasts or solemnities during the week on which Catholics are to attend Mass, also vary somewhat from country to country, and are listed on liturgical calendars.

To further complicate matters, some dioceses transfer holy days that occur during the week to the nearest Sunday (e.g., Ascension and Corpus Christi).

The News & Views column usually features brief newsworthy items related to the liturgy, with which Adoremus may or may not agree. Ordinarily we do not add comments on these items, in part because we think they speak for themselves, and in part because of limited space.

Proper Disposal
Could you please give me the correct procedure for the disposal of a soiled consecrated Host? I bring Communion to a care home. Twice, one gentleman who has indicated he wished to receive Jesus has become so confused that he fails to take the Host completely in his mouth. I have had to retrieve it, wrap it in a tissue, and bring it to the sacristy to dispose of it.

Two deacons have told me I should break it up in small pieces and wash it down the sacrarium. However, I’m sure I have read somewhere — but I can’t remember where — that it should be placed in a glass of water until it dissolves, then be poured into the sacrarium. Can you verify this for me?

Mary F. Michalsky
Tucson, Arizona

Response:
Pouring our Lord’s Body or Blood down a sacrarium is a very grave abuse. As we read in Redemptionis Sacramentum: “Anyone, therefore, who acts contrary to these norms, for example casting the sacred species into the sacrarium or in an unworthy place or on the ground, incurs the penalties laid down”. (RS 107)

A defiled Host that cannot be consumed must be broken into small pieces and so thoroughly dissolved in water that the integrity of the matter no longer exists, just as in cleansing vessels after Mass that may contain fragments of the consecrated elements. Only then is it poured into the sacrarium (or on the ground).

Stingy With Sacred Silence
In his letter to Cardinal Arinze, the late Pope John Paul II mentioned Redemptionis Sacramentum. (“On the Occasion of the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments” AB April 2005) The document calls for a period of “sacred silence” during the Mass, “at the proper times”. Yet in our local churches one hears a constant onslaught of music that virtually negates personal prayer.

In my parish the choir sings before and throughout the Mass. Missing is even a brief opportunity to reflect on the scriptural readings or to pray as an individual. Do pastors think that people at Mass must be constantly diverted? Do our clergy fear that bored parishioners may defect to the Protestant camp?

It is argued that one can offer private prayer at home. Fine. But it is not the same as praying after receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. Non-stop singing after Communion makes the “authentic inner participation” of each person in the Eucharist practically impossible.

I have been told that the requirement for silence after Communion is met when the priest sits down at the end of Mass. But this is too little and too late. Often the choir or cantor continues singing during this time, intruding on this meager interval that has been doled out for our prayer and meditation.

Maureen Gallardo
Hamilton, Ohio

Our Priorities?
You frequently report on liturgists who keep insisting that the congregation stand after receiving Communion — until all have received. Only then would we be permitted to kneel and adore the Lord.

In the April issue of AB, Cardinal Dulles points to what’s wrong with this picture. He writes “there is a vast difference between the adoration we give to Christ in the Eucharist and the veneration we offer the saints”.

If we have to “venerate” the saints as they go marching back to their pews until all have received Communion, that would leave little or no time for adoration and thanksgiving.

Come on now — where are our priorities?

Kathleen Keim
Kansas City, Missouri

Polka Mass
What is your stand on parishes having a polka Mass? Our priest will not have one but the neighboring parishes do and there is a lot of controversy.

Lorraine Zikmund
via e-mail

Response:
We like polka music, but in its proper place, not at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. (We also like clowns and jazz and R&B, but not at Mass.)

As early as 1975, the Congregation for Divine Worship ruled out dance in the liturgy because in our culture “dancing is tied with love, with diversion, with profaneness, with unbridling of the senses.... For that reason it cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever: that would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements; and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations”. (www. adoremus.org/Dance.html)

Long before this, Pope Pius X had directed that the musical styles strongly associated with secular culture (e.g., opera) should not be used for the celebration of Mass, in a 1903 document, Tra le sollecitudini (www.adoremus.org/TraLeSollecitudini.html), in which he observed that music for the sacred rites must have sanctity as its point of reference, and said that “not all that which stands outside the temple (profanum) is fit to cross the threshold”. One hundred years later, Pope John Paul II issued a statement “On Sacred Music” (www. adoremus. org/Chirograph-SacredMusic. html) reaffirming this, in which he said that new compositions and popular songs for use in the Liturgy “be pervaded by the same spirit that gave rise to and molded” Gregorian chant. He observed that music for dignified worship needs to be carefully selected, and that this will require “a renewed and further deepened consideration of the principles for the formation and dissemination of a repertoire of quality”.

Even if people do not actually do polka dances in the aisles to the Gloria or the Our Father in so-called “Polka Masses”, the English-language Mass texts and hymns are sung to popular dance tunes, with their characteristic polka rhythms and distinctive instrumentation.

Probably the the priest who first devised the “Polka Mass” in 1973, during a time when liturgical experimentation was rampant, saw his innovation as nothing more than inserting a part of Eastern European musical tradition into Catholic worship. But in fact it introduces into Mass a musical idiom that is incompatible with the expression of reverence and worship. So this type of music should never be used during the celebration of Mass; though the Mass might be followed by a celebration in the parish hall that includes this lively ethnic music.

Concerning the style of music appropriate for Mass, here are some basic considerations:

* Does the style of music enhance the sacredness of Mass?
* Is the musical style so closely associated with profane (secular) activities that it detracts from the reverence due the holy action at the altar?
* Does the music become a performance, competing with the ceremonial appropriate for Mass?
* Are people more inspired by the music to prayer or applause?

As the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium - www.adoremus.org/ SacrosanctumConcilium.html) said (112): “The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn Liturgy”.

Since the true purpose of sacred music is the “glorification of God and the sanctification of the faithful”, all music that is a part of the celebration of Mass should conform to this end.

Delayed Missal Translation
I was dismayed to read in the April Adoremus Bulletin (News & Views, “CDW Plenary Session: Approval of texts a topic”) that Cardinal George said it might be at least three more years before the new Missal texts would appear. What is taking so long?

Perhaps I am naïve, but it seems that translation of the Missale Romanum could progress quite a bit more rapidly. After all, we have the basic building blocks — the Latin text. We have excellent guidelines for the translation — Liturgiam authenticam. Lastly, we know what the results should be — an English- language version of the Roman Missal.

From purely a project management point of view, there are very few unknowns and risks. One might even venture to say, the project should be finished by now. Sadly, there must be things going on behind the scenes of which we are not aware. I hope and pray that liturgical reform is one of the items on Pope Benedict XVI’s agenda.

Christopher Flynn
Herndon, Virginia

Response:
See “BCL Proposes Missal Modifications” in the News & Views section of this issue.

Papal Coat of Arms
I was delighted when I saw the description of the new papal coat of arms in the May issue of AB (“Benedict, the Bear and the Shell”). But your account, like that of every other press or internet source, failed to clarify just why a “crowned Moor” was/is on the arms of the Archdiocese of Munich/Freising.

Trying to research the historical or symbolic significance of this has met with only limited success. Apparently “der Freisinger Mohr” first appeared on the arms of the Prince-Bishop of Freising around 1316 and remained thus until 1803, when Freising was absorbed into the Kingdom of Bavaria as part of the Napoleonic reorganization of the old Holy Roman Empire, and then became the coat of arms of the archdiocese of Munich-Freising. But its original meaning is uncertain. Did it refer to one of the Three Kings? Could it have been a misconception of one of the early bishops as depicted on an aging coin?

The fact that the head is called caput aethiopum could suggest the Christian kings of Ethiopia, who became known to western Europeans at the time of the Crusades. The Apostle Philip is depicted in Acts as converting an official of an Ethiopian ruler. The legend of “Prester John”, first mentioned in the medieval Chronicles of Freising, sometimes located its hero in Africa.

But these are theories. It would be interesting hear from other readers.

James D. Shand
Portland, Oregon

Knees to Love Christ
I read with great interest Bishop Olmstead’s article “Knees to Love Christ”. (AB May 2005) In the article, His Excellency invited people who prefer to kneel to receive Communion to consider 1) “the reverential nature of standing during the Sacred Liturgy”, 2) “the real value of unified expression of our fraternal communion in Christ”; 3) “taking exception to liturgical norms can distract others and even divert attention during this most sacred moment of communing with our Savior”; 4) [Kneeling to receive] “can draw undue attention to oneself”; 5) “Receiving Communion is a statement of our union with the entire Church, not just a time of individual experience”.

I wish to make these observations:

1) Standing to receive God, The Creator of the Universe, is by no means comparable to kneeling. Kneeling to receive our King is an immemorial custom. His Excellency cites a text from the Book of Revelation to affirm the posture of standing: “They stood before the throne and before the Lamb wearing white robes” (to sing praises to God). But only two verses later we read this: “And all the angels stood round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God...” (Rev. 7:11)

2) I agree with Bishop Olmstead’s idea of a unified expression of our fraternal communion in Christ — so let’s all kneel for our King at the altar-rail. Nowhere is it stated in any document of Vatican II that this important means of worship be dismantled.

3) That some people kneel to receive Communion should not be distracting. If there is no altar-rail, one could just kneel to receive at the end of the line. I can’t imagine other parishioners would find this disconcerting, particularly if they were conversing with Our Lord in Thanksgiving.

4) As to the point of drawing attention to oneself — remember, we’re kneeling to receive the King of kings and Lord of lords.

5) Catholics who kneel to receive Holy Communion tend to adhere to Mother Church’s oneness/unity doctrines to a much greater degree than many Catholics. Should they be dissuaded from mental prayer with their Creator after receiving Him in favor of a unified song? Should these “Most precious moments on earth” (Saint Francis) be exchanged for a unified experience?

Richard C. Janniello, Sr.
via e-mail

Ad Orientem
I was delighted to see the excerpt from U.M. Lang’s Turning Towards the Lord. (AB April 2005)

Turning Towards the Lord is the most thorough, current, and non-polemical treatment of ad orientem in the Roman Rite that I am aware of. But I was surprised to find missing from the book an important statement from the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW), responding to a question of Bishop David Foley of Birmingham, Alabama. The Congregation said, in part:

It is true ... that the rubrics of the Roman Missal, and in particular the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani, foresee that the priest will face the body of the people in the nave while leaving open the possibility of his celebrating toward the apse. These two options carry with them no theological or disciplinary stigma of any kind, It is therefore incorrect and indeed quite unacceptable that anyone affirm ... that to celebrate toward the apse “is a theologically preferable or more orthodox choice for a priest who wishes to be true to the Church’s authentic tradition”.
Origins Vol. 29, Issue 37 (March 2, 2000)

Turning Towards the Lord seems to propose that celebrating ad orientem is “theologically preferable or more orthodox”, but historically, theologically, and according to the present GIRM, the issue is not quite so straightforward.

Father Tom Margevicius
St. Paul, Minnesota

Response:
The CDW was responding to Bishop Foley, who objected to “ad orientem” and had forbidden EWTN to telecast the Mass with the celebrant “facing East”. In his letter to the CDW, Bishop Foley had stated that a priest had said that it was “more orthodox” to celebrate facing East.

A few months later, in response to a European cardinal’s question about whether the GIRM intended to exclude the “ad orientem” position of the priest, the CDW said no; affirmed that in the ancient tradition tradition of the Church, “the celebrant and the praying commnity were turned versus orientem [toward the East]; and further explained,

It would be a grave error to imagine that the principal orientation of the sacrificial offering is towards the community. If the priest celebrates versus populum [facing the people], which is legitimate and often advisable, his spiritual attitude ought always to be versus Deum per Jesus Christum [toward God through Jesus Christ], as representative of the entire Church. The Church as well, which takes concrete form in the assembly which participates, is entirely turned versus Deum [towards God] as its first spiritual movement.

The complete CDW Letter of Sept. 5, 2000 is accessible on the Adoremus site: www.adoremus. org/12-0101cdw-adorient.html

Top 10 Hymns
Ok, Ok, I’m convinced. I want to broaden our choir’s repertoire to include the treasures of our Catholic musical heritage. Who is willing to list the “top ten pieces every Catholic choir should know”? (Besides what is in The Adoremus Hymnal, of course...)

Linda Holleran
Houston, Texas

Response:
AB readers — what do you suggest? E-mail your top 10 to: editor@adoremus.org or postal mail to

Editor
Adoremus Bulletin
PO Box 300561
St. Louis, MO 63130

We’ll publish the results in a future issue of the Adoremus Bulletin.